


Keep the Memories, Burn the Tree

by FeoplePeel



Series: Harry Potter Daily Prompts [15]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Gen, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-03
Updated: 2012-03-03
Packaged: 2017-11-01 01:04:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeoplePeel/pseuds/FeoplePeel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt 041 - Andromeda, Narcissa, and Bellatrix are gathered around the Christmas tree, watching their parents bicker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep the Memories, Burn the Tree

There was a time Andromeda hated Christmas. 

She remembers the Black Christmases, before she was burned from the tree. Weeks of preparation and, ultimately, disappointment. Nothing could impress mother, and there was no present on this green Earth to make their father love her. They lavished the girls, instead. It became a competition, of sorts. Who could pick the better present, who understood which child, whose money was _paying_ for the lavishness of the season.

She hated Christmas, but she loved her sisters. The three girls never wanted for anything. Any presents one didn't want, they could exchange for one of the others. It didn't matter that _neither_ parent knew them, at all. They knew each other. 

Bellatrix had a beautiful voice. The oldest sister would sing to cover the noise of their parents arguing. When the fighting stopped, Narcissa would make them all hot chocolate and Andromeda would talk. Softly, at first, small stories of family and Christmases they'd never know; then, epic tales of mystery and romance. The men they would meet, the places they would go.

Nymphadora crawls into Andromeda's lap, starring up at the Christmas tree, the lights reflected in bright, brown eyes. A normal Christmas, a loving family with the man she's met and the daughter she loves.

And she still hates Christmas.

All of her beautiful memories of Christmas' past, the ones she reflects on each winter, are of her sisters. It's all she can do not to think of them, now. 

They aren't her sisters anymore.

Bella, mad and rotting in a cell. Cissa, in a tower of wealth and estrangement. Andromeda holds her daughter to her chest and whispers love into her hair.


End file.
